It was a big week for the Russian tech market. The NASDAQ-listed Internet giant Yandex took a big leap into the financial sector with the announcement of plans to purchase digital bank Tinkoff for $5.5 billion. Days later, the country’s largest bank, state-controlled Sberbank, launched a major rebranding in which CEO German Gref gave a Steve Jobs-esque presentation claiming the company was no longer a bank but a tech ecosystem.
Yandex’s purchase of Tinkoff Bank gives the Internet giant the necessary financial heft to challenge Sberbank’s plans to create Russia’s leading online ecosystem. The battle between the two companies in the coming years will be extremely interesting to watch.
Yandex becomes a bank, Sberbank turns to techRead More
